3 ms·

I'm aware and being careful to distinguish retail from large OEM's. The large OEM's had embedded strings in their bios (SLIC/SLP), a cert on the installer, and

I'm aware and being careful to distinguish retail from large OEM's. The large OEM's had embedded strings in their bios (SLIC/SLP), a cert on the installer, and a coa slapped on the case somewhere Vista had slic keys as well. XP had SLP oem keys which I'm a bit less familiar with. This site is like a black hole of messy information on the topic: http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/ http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/ Somewhere deep in the bowels of it is a section on how to tell which version of windows (xp/vista/7) your oem system is licensed up to. It involves using rw-everything and looking at sliic table version. I have upgraded a dell vista system to a valid 7 license in the past by doing official bios update (updates the slic version) and doing a clean install.

arthurfm 9y ago
> It involves using rw-everything and looking at SLIC table version. There's a much easier method that automates all of that for you: the Multi-OEM/Retail Project (MRP) [1]. This queries the SLIC or MSDM tables for you during the installation of Windows and enables you to create a single DVD or USB drive that works with OEM PCs from 131 different manufacturers. All you have to do is copy the included '$oem$' folder to the 'sources' folder of your Windows 10, 8.x, 7 or Windows Vista ISO/USB and it takes care of the rest. The MRP is designed to determine what motherboard manufacturer is fitted and find the DMI, (board information), to then check against a database to pick the right theme, logo's etc. Along side this, if the computer has either a MSDM key or SLIC within the bios, to check that against the database and attempt to allow LEGAL activation as the Computer's OEM suppliers would do. For those with a Windows 10 Digital Licence (HWID), or MSDM key your computer should auto-activate when you go online, providing you have installed the correct Edition for the HWID/MSDM key. [1] https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/multi-oem-retail-project-mrp-mk3.71555/ https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/multi-oem-retail-pr...

arthurfm 9y ago

> It involves using rw-everything and looking at SLIC table version. There's a much easier method that automates all of that for you: the Multi-OEM/Retail Project (MRP) [1]. This queries the SLIC or MSDM tables for you during the installation of Windows and enables you to create a single DVD or USB drive that works with OEM PCs from 131 different manufacturers. All you have to do is copy the included '$oem$' folder to the 'sources' folder of your Windows 10, 8.x, 7 or Windows Vista ISO/USB and it takes care of the rest. The MRP is designed to determine what motherboard manufacturer is fitted and find the DMI, (board information), to then check against a database to pick the right theme, logo's etc. Along side this, if the computer has either a MSDM key or SLIC within the bios, to check that against the database and attempt to allow LEGAL activation as the Computer's OEM suppliers would do. For those with a Windows 10 Digital Licence (HWID), or MSDM key your computer should auto-activate when you go online, providing you have installed the correct Edition for the HWID/MSDM key. [1] https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/multi-oem-retail-project-mrp-mk3.71555/ https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/multi-oem-retail-pr...